


Ravenous

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One way Lucius Lavin might leave this mortal coil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ravenous

Lucius Lavin starves to death. He's not the only person starving in Pegasus at the time; whole worlds are full of people who are sick and can't work the fields, whose crops are failing and livestock diseased, or who don't possess enough in the way of social standing to compel their governments to feed them. So Lucius does not die alone in the cosmic sense, but in the smaller and more personal sense, Lucius dies hungry and completely alone.

At first he thinks he can live like other men, with the work of his two hands and the brains the Ancestors gave him. However, Lucius quickly learns that he has no skills other than self-aggrandizement, and, well, nobody ever ate a boast. Not and stayed full, anyway. He doesn't know how to hunt and every plant he touches curls in on itself and dies and he can't build a table that will bear the weight of a basket of tuttleroot. Lucius can find no group of people willing to take in a full grown able-bodied man who can contribute absolutely nothing to the well-being of the community. He knows better than to visit any world where Lucius the Mighty and Magnificent has reigned; he prefers his head squarely on his shoulders, thank you very much. This leaves Lucius with precious few options.

Lucius is as poor a thief as he is a farmer and he finally gets caught pinching lorma from the market on Kellos. He tries to run but the vendor's right hook catches him under the jaw and when he wakes, he doesn't know where he is. Forest is thick around him, dense and green and cool, and Lucius thinks he is still on Kellos, but he can't be sure. So many of the planets in Pegasus look much the same. He wanders for days and he cannot find the Gate. It does not rain. On the second day, he eats a handful of leaves from a squat bush, but they make his mouth swell and he shits for hours, until he's weak and shaking.

Lucius dies curled up on his side with his tongue heavy in his mouth and stars in his eyes. The last thing he hears is the sweet lilt of birdsong.


End file.
